La Baronne, Juste le Rouge - 2024

Fast Facts:

Winemaker(s): Jean & Anne Lignères
Region: Moux → Corbières → Languedoc-Roussillon → France
Classification: Vin de France
Varietal(s): Grenache Gris, Mourvèdre
Terroir: Gravel over clay and limestone, Mediterranean climate
Serving Temp: 55-65°F

Jean Lignères still keeps walk-in office hours every morning at the winery. He's the country doctor in Moux, and he's the grower, the same burning-the-candle-at-both-ends energy his father had before him. Anne Lignères bumped into the wine world coming from hydrogeology, the science of where water goes underground, which happens to be essential around here. Four generations of Lignères have farmed here without much use for spraying anything, so the organic certification in 2007 was mostly the paperwork catching up. Biodynamics was the heavier lift, and they got there in 2012.

The estate sits on the lower slopes of the Montagne d'Alaric. The mountain rock is made up of limestone, which drinks rain water very efficiently, collecting deep underground instead of shedding it off. The water collected has created a reservoir under this vineyard, keeping the ground cool through a Mediterranean summer while everything around it bakes. The Lignères have spent years building up the landscape and cover crop as well: hedgerows through the rows, ponds, stone piles, even a flock of sheep that they turn loose all winter.

Juste le Rouge means just the red, though juste also means right, which is a nice little joke mixed in with the branding. Grenache Gris happens to NOT be red, but in fact is a pink-skinned mutation of Grenache that nearly always gets made into white wine; here, they put it into terracotta jars where the grapes go in whole and break down in their own juice over six months, which is where the color and the delightful tannin come from. The Mourvèdre ferments separately in steel and supplies the savory oomphy half. They're blended and bottled right away at 11.5%. Throw it back!

Why'd we pick it?

In addition to the charm of a family who hangs bat hotels and nest boxes to cultivate local habitat in their vineyards, this wine is a bit of a time capsule, albeit not old. In July of 2025 a roadside fire got into the Corbières and burned through a third of the estate, much of it old vines that had already made it through a decade of drought. Anne told a French trade paper that walking through the property afterward hurt, that there were no trees left around them. This wine was picked and bottled before that, from a vineyard that no longer looks the way it did.

Field Notes

• Tastes like: Crushed raspberry, rhubarb, oily orange peel, and a little hillside herbs. And that delightful tannin gives it just enough edge, finishing dry and savory
• Serve it with a chill, but it honestly drinks wonderfully room temp too. Maybe throw it in the fridge for 15, see how you like it.
• Food Pairings: Chanterelles are on their way! Sear them hard in olive oil with garlic and a lot of parsley and then fold them into buttered noodles. Grill chicken thighs rubbed with tarragon, thyme and pepper. And an excellent snack plate of cold garlic sausage, cornichons, and a bowl of marcona almonds.